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1911 Drill – Hand Switching

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Marky
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1911 Drill. Hand Switching.
1911 Drill. Hand Switching.

Another in my mini-series of indoor friendly 1911 drills, I present to you hand-switching. Or what we colloquially call Jazz Hands. (Forgive me 😜) 

All joking aside the subject matter here is going to get rather serious because almost all 1911 guys are whistling past the graveyard on the issue. 

This drill doesn’t address how you should switch hands. I will leave that up to your instructor cadre / controlling institution. But suffice it to say, I hope the first time you ever need to switch hands isn’t the first time you have ever practiced switching hands.

So be a professional and get after this skill. 

Finer 1911 points: 

One. Only work the safety with the switched-to, firing hand. DO NOT manipulate the safety then switch to the firing hand. That is straight up cheating. If your gun only has a single sided safety, too bad. Do it the F’ing hard way, Lazy Ass. Or upgrade your safety to an ambi. Either way, run the gun YOU brung. This is a skills drill and it might be the only time you formally practice working the wrong-side safety. So actually work it. 

Two. After firing, you must reengage the safety with the firing hand. Don’t switch the gun back to the easy hand first. And DEFINITELY don’t use the support hand to cheat the safety on. Why? You guessed it: THAT’S CHEATING! 

This is a skills drill. And as the great firearms instructor Yoda once said, “Do or do not with a 1911 safety”. Are you a professional? Then act like it. Especially if you carry a 1911. If you always run ambi-safeties, then you win on this drill. If you are a single-sided-safety-guy, then you made the bed. Lay in it. Work the safety as it’s configured…one handed. 

Final thoughts on which single sided safety technique to use. Notice in the video, I demonstrated two different techniques. I am not advocating either. That’s up to you and any training cadre that trains you. But understand…if you drop a loaded gun at the indoor gun range, expect to be invited to shoot elsewhere. 

Choose wisely. 

 

 

Sincerely, 

Marky

www.John1911.com

“Shooting Guns & Having Fun”

Marky
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